From County Poor Farm to the Great Minnesota Get-Together: Dan Patch, the 1885 Compromise, and the Ground That Holds the Whole State

On September 8, 1906, on the closing day of the Minnesota State Fair, a pacer named Dan Patch ran a mile in one minute and fifty-five seconds and set a world record that stood for thirty-two years. The ground he ran on had been a Ramsey County poor farm, donated in 1885 to end twenty-five years of feuding between Minneapolis and St. Paul over where the state fair belonged. On this episode of Pionerd: The Minnesota Edition, host Robert Thomas traces the fairgrounds from a county welfare farm to the fair that draws more people per day than any in America.Key Topics & Historical Highlights:The Roving Years, 1855–1884: Fort Snelling, Red Wing, Rochester, Winona and Owatonna, plus the grasshopper plague and the competing fairs Minneapolis staged out of spite.The Fairchild Compromise: How Henry S. Fairchild of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce ended the deadlock by pointing at land neither city could claim, and why the almshouse became the fair's first administration building.The House That Dan Patch Built: Marion Savage's sixty-thousand-dollar horse, the world record of 1906, and the grandstand his crowds outgrew.The War Plant Years: A.O. Smith's aircraft propeller operation inside the Cattle Barn, two straight cancellations, and the Pronto Pup that greeted the fair's return.